To provide communication between remotely located pieces of electronic equipment, flexible cables extend between communication ports located on the equipment. The cables are made of a plurality of conductive wires bundled together within a cover wherein each wire is capable of carrying a transmitted electrical signal. Thus the cable establishes a plurality of electrical communication paths between the equipment. To prevent cross talk or short-circuiting of the wires, each wire includes an insulation jacket made of a non-conductive material that surrounds a conductive core of the wire.
To facilitate connection of the cable to the equipment, connectors are typically assembled at the ends of the cable. The connectors include contacts for establishing isolated communication between each wire and a corresponding receptacle within the communication port. In order to disconnect a cable from a particular piece of equipment, the connectors are often configured to releasably connect with the communication ports.
Often, it is desirable to connect more than two remotely located pieces of electronic equipment together to establish a multi-piece network. Furthermore, it is often necessary to temporally connect a piece of testing equipment to the network to perform diagnostics or otherwise monitor the network. After performing the diagnostics or monitoring, the testing equipment is then disconnected from the network. However, electronic and testing equipment often have a limited number of communications ports and it is therefore necessary to develop appropriate cabling and splicing schemes.